During Stalin's last years Yuli Raizman was assigned the job to direct one of the most false and infamous propaganda films of the period.

In continuation to Ivan Pyriev's The Cossacks of the Kuban also The Knight of the Golden Star is a story of "prosperous progress" immediately after WWII - also by the Kuban river.

The images of happiness and abundance are so contrary to reality that there is a feeling of an almost superstitious spectacle of wish-fulfillment so that the audience can forget the misery of life at least for the duration of the screening. (The prime audience member being Stalin himself who based his knowledge of Soviet reality on watching films like this).

In High Stalinist film fantasy gloss there is also an affinity with the Chinese model opera films of the Cultural Revolution. They created for the audience a parallel dream world. (Which is what MGM musicals also did in their more innocent fashion: the Hollywood musical was not the only truth).

Having seen Raizman's Thaw era movie Kommunist (made seven years later) yesterday I'm struck by parallels in the stories. (1) There is a story of the relationship by the energetic Communist and the hesitant young woman. (2) Rumours start circulating which seriously upset the woman (although nothing has happened). (3) The workaholic man neglects the woman, making the situation even worse. (4) In both films, the project is to build a power plant. (5) The man urges the woman to study (here she studies electronics, to become a technician, "a goddess of light" in the man's eyes).

As always with Raizman, the keyword in the account of human relationships is tact - even in a propaganda piece like this.

Raizman seems constitutionally unable to be anything but gentle and considerate. There is tenderness and sensitivity in the encounters. That is the main difference with Pyriev and The Cossacks of the Kuban, which rolls along in high gear from start to finish. On the other hand, in Pyriev's Kuban film there is a passionate undercurrent of profound grief which is probably the source of its emotional force. Remarkably, Pyriev creates a manifestly matriarchal tale while Raizman's world is patriarchal (but pre-feminist, Raizman being always a partisan for equal rights for women). Raizman is subtle and Pyriev is passionate, both with their dimensions of emotional truth in tales of public falsehood.

Sergei Urusevsky was about to become world famous during the Thaw with The Cranes Are Flying, Soy Cuba, and The Letter That Was Never Sent. Here he is already flexing his cinematographic muscles with soaring crane shots and long tracking shots. The takes are often long and ambitious, and there is already that flying, dizzying touch. The mise-en-scène is full of life in huge crowd sequences. There is a feeling of grandeur in the footage of the construction site of the power plant.

The Knight of the Golden Star is a fairy-tale about the victory of light. The power plant is finished, and the lights are turned on all over the valley. "See what a light is rising over our land". "Can you feel communism coming near?" Those are the last words of the original version of this film which we screened. From Mosfilm YouTube we even showed the epilogue shot later with features of the future already happening: efficient irrigation on the fields, a huge and shiny modern cowhouse - and the powerplant seen as a miracle palace from dreams.

Sergei Bondarchuk had his breakthrough as a film star in The Young Guard (1948) and The Knight of the Golden Star. Bondarchuk was ashamed of this account of the war veteran as a dashing hero gleaming with well-being. He envied the Italians who told the truth in their Neorealistic masterpieces. Bondarchuk revised utterly the image of the homecoming war veteran in his Thaw masterpiece The Destiny of a Man (1959).

Digitized from our vintage nitrate print the visual look is somewhat shabby and brownish, the Magicolor of the nitrate print by now being probably beyond salvation.

Jazz Record of the Week 32/2016

Jazz Record of the Week 25/2016

Jazz Record of the Week 24/2016

Sonny Rollins: A Night at the Village Vanguard (1957, 2 cd reissue 2016)

Jazz Record of the Week 23/2016

Charlie Mingus: Blues & Roots

Jazz Record of the Week 22/2016

Mal Waldron: Moods

Jazz Record of the Week 21/2016

Django Bates: Belovèd Bird

Jazz Record of the Week 20/2016

Jacques Loussier Trio: The Original Play Bach Vols. 1 & 2

Jazz Record of the Week 19/2016

Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges: Side by Side

Jazz Record of the Week 18/2016

Ray Charles: Genius+Soul=Jazz. Complete 1956-1960 Sessions with Quincy Jones (Genius+Soul=Jazz, The Genius of Ray Charles, The Genius Hits the Road, and from The Great Ray Charles and The Genius After Hours)

About Me

Antti Alanen (born 1955) is Film Programmer at National Audiovisual Institute (Finland), which runs the Cinema Orion in Helsinki. This diary is an irregular notebook of rough notes on films and occasional film-related experiences. Early notes 1963-1970: see January 1971. This blog ran out of labels in October 2009. antti.alanen at gmail.com